Hearts are There to be Broken
by kitty-re
Summary: Who is James without his Lily? How can you manage to be able to pick up all the broken pieces when each one just reminds you of her all over again?


**Hearts are There to be Broken  
**- kitty-re

_Don't you think I could tell that you were trying to, trying to make a fool out of me?_  
**- A Letter From Janelle; Chiodos**

k.

We make the same mistakes over and over again, we being human beings. Teenagers, to be more exact. We get caught up in a new relationship, we become obsessed, we make ourselves believe them to be the greatest thing in the world; we make ourselves believe we're in love.

Big mistake.

When we believe we're in love we build someone up so much, put them on such a high pedestal that at some point they're bound to fall. And we must know - we must know that when we place them in such a high place that it's just _not possible_ to be that amazing, that great.

So why? Why after all the stories you hear do you let yourself get into the situation? Putting your heart on your sleeve is basically begging for it to broken.

I got on all knees and placed my heart on the precipice of the tallest cliff, all the time saying,

"_It won't fall, it won't break. You need to put your all into this or it won't work. It won't fall, it won't break – if it drops she'll catch it. If it drops she'll catch it and hold onto it tighter than before. It won't fall, it won't break. I won't break."_

Stupid James, stupid, stupid James.

I could basically hear it crashing to the ground, I waited for the final crash – the resounding break that would hurt more than I could imagine. That would leave me damaged for months, holding onto my head to try to stop it breaking apart to mimic my heart – because I know I wouldn't be able to survive without Lily in my life once I had let her in that deep.

But the cliff was taller than I thought.

And when I waited for it to break it carried on dropping and I clenched my fists together and closed my eyes, waiting for it to finally end, for it to hit the bottom._ Just do it already, just fucking kill me right now._ When at last it happened it was so much stronger than I was prepared for I couldn't breathe. My entire being was un-rooted from the bottom up, everything that I thought was sure turned into uncertainties. Everything black turned into white and everything white turned into black.

All boundary lines were ripped apart seam by seam and moved to places I couldn't see or find. I reached into the darkness to try to find myself but all I could uncover was more emptiness.

I guess that's what I had - have become now. Just emptiness. So resounding that even the greatest seekers in the world wouldn't be able to find anything.

She had hollowed me out. Had all of her roots set in _just_ deep enough that she knew if she ever got taken out it'd pull everything with her.

She plays with the heart she scraped out of my chest even after she's already broken it. I want to reach out and snatch it from her hands but I can't take it back. It's hers. It'll always be hers.

She tosses it up and down, toying with me with sad smiles in the corridors and tear stained eyes in the Common Room. Sometimes I feel like screaming at her, _Why are you fucking crying when I'm the one you broke? You did this remember? It's your fault. So why are you fucking crying…Just, why - why are you crying?_

Sirius reckons she's trying to leave a bigger scar, manipulating my mind to think that _I_ hurt _her_. Says it's a way for me to go "crawling-back" to her because she knows seeing her pain is worse than my own. And I didn't even think that was possible until I saw her crying.

All of my instincts told me to run up to her and hold her until she stops, but I knew I couldn't. So I battled, my mind against my body – forcing my legs past the armchair that she housed and up the dormitory stairs. I ignored the pats on my back, the pitiful faces of my roommates and just laid in bed, trying to rip apart my thoughts one by one so I could get her out of them. But of course it didn't work. She's Lily _Evans._ Lily Evans could never be forgotten or replaced. She could never be pushed to the side in my mind.

Sometimes I get angry about it, rage and storm – run my fingers through my hair so forcefully it's like my skull is being bruised. I say to myself that she knew what she was doing; she knew she was breaking my heart. She got into his bed; she pushed herself on him when she was drunk. I was down the fucking hall while she was fucking him. She could have run to me, she could have stopped.

Then I feel like punching him in the face, square in the nose, then holding onto his shirt and just punch after punch. A piece of magical wood wouldn't do what I wanted to be done, I need to feel his cheek bone break under my fist. I need to hear the dull yet blunt _thump, thump, thump_.

The blood rushing to my head.

The bruises on his face.

But then it makes me think of her and how much she hates violence. How disappointed she'd be in me. So that's what stops me tearing him into shreds every time our eyes catch for the smallest fraction of a second in the Grand Hall or when we pass in the corridors. It makes me sick that even after we've broken up and she's broken me this much that she holds me back from things I want to do. It rots my stomach that I consider her feelings more important than mine even after all of this.

To be honest, sometimes I feel like just giving up. Quitting the act that I don't look for her in every room I go into, stop pretending that every time I drop my books as I'm heading out of Defense that I'm not just trying to catch 10 more seconds in her presence. Sometimes I feel like entwining our hands and resting my forehead on hers, "_we'll forget this ever happened"_ I'd say, and she'd nod – cry a bit in happiness because she's crying all the time now, and we'd kiss.

It'd all be over. It'd be perfect. We'd be together again.

"But why should you do that?" Sirius said to me when I told him of my thoughts, "why should you have to go up to her and make it all better when she did this to _you_."

It's moments like then that I feel like ignoring him and going to Remus instead, but all he says now is _"she's so sorry James. She's so sorry."_ For heavens sake I know she's sorry, she's a big of a mess as I am. But why should that change anything? I'm different now, she had made me different. I never considered myself as "broken" before.

And then sometimes, the worst theory of them all comes to my mind, that he _forced_ her. My mind rages, _she would have told me – I could have saved her, I'm just thinking this so that she can be the same person in my eyes_. But then the other side of my mind fights back, saying that maybe she was scared, maybe she just wanted to forget; maybe that's why she's crying so much because it wasn't even her fault and she lost me.

I just want to pick her up in my arms and never put her down. Spend the whole week with just me and her, talking and making up for lost time.

I'd break his nose later, maybe an arm too – but I'd have to use a wand for that one, to be sure it really breaks. First came Lily, nothing else matters.

So here I am, sitting on the edge of my bed once again thinking through the different theories and the different things I can do and all I can think is, _what if it wasn't her fault, what if it isn't her fault._ And all I want to do is talk to her again because this waiting, this thinking, hurts so much and isn't doing anyone any good.

Walking down the dormitory stairs the lump in my throat is growing and growing and at the sight of her face it turns into a tennis ball. She drops her gaze, her now usual custom when our eyes meet, and an echo of what I recognize as my heart rate speeding up dully thumps in my chest. All I've done is made my decision and already I can feel the edges of me coming back, I can feel my eyes actually opening and taking in everything around me, but most of all I take in her.

Her hair is pulled back into a loose bun with red wavy strands falling out everywhere. I know the style off by heart; it's how she wears it when there's something wrong, when she doesn't care how she looks because there are more important things in her life.

"Lily?" I catch her just as she's leaving the Common Room, she freezes – her foot just over the edge of the portrait hole. Everything around me seems to go quiet, the background buzzing mutes but all I do is wait for her to answer.

Fear begins to course through my veins, maybe I had waited too long; maybe I had made her wait too long. I had lost my chance – she'd moved on.

She turns, just an inch or two in my direction and my heart beats grows stronger and stronger in my chest. The faint thumping erupts into joyful bashes against my ribs, a light smile pulls itself around the corners of my lips – so this is what I had been missing out on. I had forgotten all of this magic.

I walk over to her; this doesn't need to be said in front of the whole common room,

"Can we talk outside?"  
She nods and leads the way, when we get into the corridor she turns and faces me fully for the first time and it's like I'm smacked in the face with a gust of air. Her beauty is so tangible, so tantalizing that I can't help but reach out and put my hands on the side of her face. My thumb rubs out the tear tracks that have started to make their way down her cheeks, and I just kiss her.

Softly and sweetly. I pull back just a tiny bit and wait for her, wait for her to realize it's all over.

She drops her books to the ground and wraps her arms around my neck, moving my hands down to the small of her back I pull her closer to me. Kissing her was like coming up for your first breath after being underwater, she was fresh, she was beautiful; she was a necessity to me. I don't break the kiss and neither does she, conversations can come later – right now all that matters is her.

It had been a long time. Too long of a time.

* * *

_**a/n:**_ Thoughts? Questions? What theory do you have with what happened? Review away.


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